Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard believes the Gunners have a big chance of making it through to the UEFA Champions League final despite trailing Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) 1-0 from the first-leg.
A fourth minute strike by Ousmane Dembele handed the Ligue 1 champions the first-leg advantage.
Mikel Arteta’s men must now go all out for victory to reach this season’s final.
Ahead of the reverse fixture, Odegaard assessed his side’s first-leg loss and why he believes he and his teammates can still turn things around next week.
“We are only at half-time after Tuesday’s match against Paris Saint-Germain, and we all have the feeling that we can still beat them and go through,” the Norwegian said on arsenal.com.
“We had a tricky start in the match, against them, with their early goal meaning they could open the game up. They were really strong and made it difficult for us at the beginning, but I thought we found our way back into the game really well and started to take control after that.
“We created some good chances and got the ball into the box well, but we needed to be a bit better in the final third, be more ruthless when we had those chances and also create a bit more. But overall it was a tight game and a good battle. There is at least another 90 minutes to go, and we’re going to be ready.
“The first leg showed that matches at this level are decided by such fine margins. The offside goal was millimetres and overall there was not much dividing the teams.
“Look back at the first leg against Real Madrid. We had two incredible moments with the free-kicks, and that completely changed the game and the whole momentum. You need those moments to go for you because every game lives its own life.
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“So we’re one goal behind, but we are confident we can go there and do it. Our away record is really good in Europe. We can take the confidence from what we did at the Bernabeu a couple of weeks ago into our game in Paris. We beat Real Madrid away when they were really on it and needed to score goals, so that shows we are capable of anything.
“We have to go there with that same mindset. To be honest, I think it would have been the same if it were the other way round and we were leading 1-0. We would still want to go to Paris and win. So let’s remember that it’s only half-time and we still have a big chance to go through.”
On today’s (Saturday) fixture with Bournemouth, Odegaard said:”Today’s game against Bournemouth is also really important in the league – we have to win for our position in the league, and we want a big game like this because it keeps our focus high. It’s a bit of a different challenge but it’s important for us to get back to winning ways, not only to take a good feeling into next week, but also because we want to finish as high as we can.
“Obviously it hurts that we can no longer finish top, we wanted to fight to the end, and it’s a big disappointment for us, but our new target is to make sure we at least finish second.”
